* Who Am I?
Have about 5 interesting facts per child. After you sing a verse of the song tell your primary friends that you have a mystery child of God. Tell the 5 facts. See if they can guess who it is! Invite that friend and whoever guesses correctly to come up front and help you lead.
* Have a picture of children from all over the world. Make it into a puzzle and turn the pieces so the picture can't be seen. As you learn the words to the song, primary children can earn a chance to turn around a puzzle piece. We are all so different! Yet we are all brothers and sisters. We are all children of Heavenly Father who loves us dearly.
* Psalms 82:6 says "All of you are children of the most High." Write it on the chalk board. Have a picture of Heavenly Father & Jesus Christ appearing to Joseph Smith. As far as I know, that is the only gospel picture of Heavenly Father... except for smaller illustrations in the scripture story books. Put that picture as high as possible on the chalk board. Have paper signs that you can write class names on like Sunbeams, CTR 4, etc. Look for classes that have everyone singing in them! Invite a child to come put their class post it as high as possible on the chalk board... you might have to have them stand on a chair or lift them! And of course, make it positive... this isn't a competition! All classes should be able to move their post it to the top!! For example, "Wow. Sunbeams!! That was amazing. Come move your post it Annie for your class. Every single one of you were singing! Let's try verse two and see who else we can move!! I'm so proud of you children of the most High!!"
* Videos almost always catch children's attention. HERE is a Mormon message video to I am A Child of God that you could share with your primary. I really like it. It's peppy and fun. But my favorite part is that around 1 min. 32 seconds there is a guy and he's holding something that looks like a black snake with it's mouth open.
* A while back, I had an interesting discussion with a friend who wasn't a member of our church. Actually, it wasn't that interesting. It was frustrating. What one of his hang ups with the gospel was the fact that we know we have the possibility to become like God. I tried to make it as simple as possible, and thinking back it'd actually be a good introduction to learning this song.
Show a picture of a baby sheep. Does this little lamb have a cow for a father? Show a picture of a baby horse? Does this foal have an elephant for a mother? What about an apple? Does an apple come from an orange tree? We are children of Heavenly Father. We were created in His image. He has a body and we have a body. He loves us more than we can know. The universe didn't just explode and humans were created. We are children of God and we need to try our best to return to Him and be like Him!!
* GOOD TO KNOW: " When “I Am a Child of God” was first written in English one of the lines read: “Teach me all that I must know to live with Him someday.” However, Sister Randall changed the words because of a suggestion made by President Kimball.
Several years ago, before Spencer W. Kimball became president of the Church, he was visiting a conference in California where Primary children sang this song. Later, he said to a visiting Primary general board member, “I love the children’s song, but there is one word that bothers me. Would Sister Randall mind if the word know were changed to the word do?”
The change was made, for President Kimball had pointed out a very important truth—that while it is important to know what is right, it is more important to do what is right. Only in this way can we be sure of returning someday to our heavenly home to live always with our Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and our loved ones. Great joy comes to us when we understand the full meaning of the words “I Am a Child of God!
Thank you for the ideas and video link. I think this is a perfect way to introduce our new yearly theme and first Sharing Time of the year.
ReplyDeleteOh my golly!!!! I even have that video on my blog and I didn't notice the black snake looking thing with its mouth open!!!!! You are so right! That is incredibly hilarious
ReplyDeleteNow I really want to find out what he was holding. Was it a snake or a black trash bag for doing community service? Thanks for posting all the song helps and ideas--it's really made my life easier this month!
ReplyDeleteAmazing! its so cute and really enjoy reading it.
ReplyDeleteThank for sharing this up.
Family International (tfi)
It's not a snake! It's a trash bag ladies.... LOL
ReplyDelete